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I had a realisation today... I put my car into get checked at the mechanic and after seeing the $2500 at the bottom of the list of things that need to be fixed, I wondered, yet again, whether university is worth it. $2500 is a tenth of my pay for the year in my dead end casual job. Is university really worth getting paid $20,000 a year to do a job I hate to possibly, eventually get a better job than I could get now?

Now this revelation doesn't seem to have a whole lot of do with education. Why should my complaining about life be put in my education blog? Why does it matter?

It matters because this is how my students will feel when I hand them an assignment and they have more important things to deal with. Is the assignment worth 25% of their grade worth anything to them. As long as they pass what else does it matter? Do they really care about Shakespeare, will they ever use Homer, when will they ever need to list all of Australia's presidents and what does learning their names teach them?

We were all brought up with the notion that you study hard to get into university so you can get a better job. Is that true these days though? I know many people who've quit school in year 10 who've got alright jobs that pay alright money. Where as I know a few people who have diploma's and degree's who can't find jobs, so they're still doing their dead end casual jobs they picked up in university.

We need real world information in high school because there is no more guarantee that children are going to want to continue on their schooling when the reasons behind it are no longer valid. A $20000 HECs dept to do a degree that may or may not get you a job is not going to be enough to tempt the students of the future.

We need to work out our students priorities, just like I need to work out my own. What is important? What isn't? and what is vital

How can I...

Why can I walk up to an Irish man and say “Hey! You’re Irish, I’m Australian.” But it’s taboo for me to walk up to an African and say “Hey! You’re African, I’m Australian.”. Is it because we’re no longer talking about racism around culture, nationality or traditions, we’re talking about racism surrounding colour and cosmetic differences?

How do I teach students that discrimination to any one is unfair when insulting certain people is abhorred more than others?

Why do we have 1 week to celebrate harmony in the community when it is something that should be practiced every day? Is it because we need to focus on it else wise we forget? Or is it because we only need to celebrate multiculturalism once a year?

How do I teach students Australia is always multicultural, do I tell them that’s just a week where we are /more/ multicultural than usual?

How do I teach students that everyone is equal when we call countries “Third world”?

How come I can go up to a stranger and assume they’re straight and everything is fine, but if I go up to a stranger and assume they are homosexual, I am considered rude and insulting? Are we really as far along in equality as we think?

Can I teach students that it is okay to be homosexual when they may go home and come out; resulting in bullying, being disowned by their parents and being shunned from society, from possibly even their religion?

Links of Interest

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16879336

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/writing-students-literacy-rebecca-alber

Back Again

So I'm back at University, sitting in the lecture halls listening to people tell me about their life experiences and how they relate to the course matter, the history behind the person who wrote the course matter and all those wonderful people who spent their lives developing the course matter. I'm not saying University isn't interesting, it really is, I find it wonderful and exciting! It's just that sometimes I feel their should be a class lecturers take before becoming lecturers.
One of my lecturers spent the first lecture basically summarizing the first couple of chapters of the textbook. I told this to my friend and they said "It's for the benefit of those people who hadn't read the textbook." which to me, seems like a complete waste of time, why would we read the textbook if you're just going to tell us what it says anyway, but we come to University and pay our money so we can learn, and we should be capable enough to read our own textbook. I'd read the first 4 chapters of my text book eagerly before classes started so I could be prepared to answer questions and understand why we were learning what we were about to be learning. Instead, I spent the entire lecture wishing I had just walked into class that day without reading a word of the text. I felt like I was a second grader who'd been shot back into kindy. The teacher saying "This is what the letter A looks like.". If they don't expect us to read the text and to prepare for our own learning, why do they call it university. It's just an expensive second high school where instead of Year 12 certificates we receive degrees.